Flying the crap skies

Is it just me, or in my year away from the US, has air travel there somehow gone from awful to hell on Earth?

I've always thought I've been relatively lucky with air travel in the US. Never been stranded anywhere for too long, never lost my luggage for any long period of time and every time I've gone up in the air, my flight has landed safely. This day in age, that's pretty much all we can ask for, right?

Well. God. Flying in the US on my trip in August. Yeah... jeez.

Let me start by saying that the good folks who work on the ground at Continental aren't God; they can't control the weather. (Or is that Mother Nature's jurisdiction? Maybe Al Roker?) And second, they're people. Like you and me. So they have feelings. And are allowed to get frustrated. So let me direct this at the ass clowns at Continental who don't work on the ground: When a freaking hurricane is baring down on one of your major hubs, you take measures to prevent delays. You add more staff. And not only staff at the airport, but maybe a few more people at your call center. Because, you see, there's a freaking hurricane baring down on one of your hubs. And as I'm sure it's happened about every other time in the past, that's going to affect things. Negatively.

Anyway, it was Day #5 of my trip to the US, and I was heading from LA to New York. Nonstop. Meanwhile, in the middle of the country, Hurricane Edouard was baring down on Houston. Which -- just to make abundantly clear -- is neither LA or New York. Or anywhere close to either of those cities. Yet there I was at LAX, well over an hour before my flight, and it was chaos at the check-in counter for Continental. Because most of their flights go through Houston. In fact, as far as I could tell, all of their flights on this particular morning, outside of mine and a nonstop to Honolulu, were going through Houston. So hey, that's going to cause some problems, right?

Yeah. Let's skip over most of the other crap. People were cranky. The staff on the ground were not all that pleasant. Wrong information was disseminated. And as I finally got to the front of the line at 8am, half an hour before my flight was scheduled to leave, I was told it was too late. Which resulted in my releasing of a groan that reverberated throughout the airport. Good times.

So I called Continental* to book a new flight, get placed on hold, and wait. And wait. Aaaaannnnnnd wait. And finally get on the phone with a human. Who subsequently told me that because I booked my ticket with frequent flier miles from Delta, I'd have to call them. Even though Delta decided to pawn me off to their friends at Continental. So that was fun.

*This isn't exactly the most astute or groundbreaking of observations, but I've always been bewildered by the whole call-the-airline-from-the-airport thing. I don't really think this requires any further explanation. Yet it has somehow become a time honored tradition for anyone stranded at the airport.

Whatever. I finally got through to Delta. I booked a flight for four hours later. I checked in. And I waited. And started drinking at 10am. And made it to JFK, where we sat outside the gate on the tarmac for about thirty minutes. And then waited another 45 freaking minutes for any bags to come out. What shit.

In New York, I shared my horrific experience with people. And was quickly seconded by Robert and Regan, who shared their own stories of awful flight experiences that weekend. I'm not talking about a bad flight experience at some point in their life; we've all had those. I'm talking about bad experiences that weekend. And their woes had nothing to do with Edouard. No, no. For it seems as though when you now fly domestically in the US, something will go wrong.

These fears were of course confirmed on my return flight from New York to LA, when the fun actually started three days before the flight. Because of all of the fun with my menage a trois with Delta and Continental, I called the good folks at Continental to confirm my flight. And what do you know, there was confusion. Continental had my reservation from Delta, but not a ticket. Delta was like, "Yo dude, we sent the details to Continental, it's not our problem." Continental said, "Hells no! Those punks need to send us some ticket info!" And around and around we went.

Whatever. I solved that. And on the day of my flight, after a nine hour trip from Martha's Vineyard to Woods Hole to Bourne to Providence to New York* to Newark Airport -- that's right, just to get to the airport -- my flight boarded an hour late. And then we sat on the tarmac for at least another two hours, as the pilot told us that we were 4oth in line to take off! FORTIETH!!

*I had the honor of passing through Port Authority while in New York. And in the ten minutes I was there, I had a man wish death upon me, purely because I refused his offer of directions that I neither wanted or needed. That's the Port Authority I grew to know and love for my four years there...

We eventually took off, I labored my way through Made of Honor and finally landed in LA, to be greeted by Erika, Mike and an In N Out feast. Which just about made my whole trip from LA to New York and back worth it.